EXAM ADVICE

LITS3304 CONTEMPORARY CRITICAL THEORY:
POST-STRUCTURALISMS AND POST-COLONIALISMS

EXAM ADVICE 2007-2008

There are SIX questions in the exam.
The focus of the exam is on Module 2 of the course.
You are required to answer TWO questions in all.
In each answer, you should compare the views of TWO theorists by referring closely to their respective arguments.
There will be ONE question devoted to each of the following topics:
- A general topic (an issue which has arisen in the course as a whole)
- Knowledge;
- The Author;
- Literary History (the Tradition) / Intertextuality / Canonicity;
- Representation; and
- Literary Form.

Further Advice:

Once you have chosen your topics, try to deepen your knowledge of the issues at stake, that is, of the ongoing debates on the subject in question. To this end, you may wish to 'google' the term and click on the links which are suggested. Alternatively, you may wish to visit my PhilWeb pages (see the links above and below) and either click on the links to online sources provided there or hunt down some of the books or articles ('off-line resources') mentioned there and which may be found in the Main Library. For example, what does the concept 'knowledge' mean? How has it been defined? What are the main issues subsumed under this rubric?
Once you have familiarised yourself with the topics in question, you should closely familiarise yourself with the theorists and essays listed under the rubric in question on the Reading Schedule. Here is a reminder of what we covered by topic:
- Knowledge:
- The Author:
  - Tomashevsky "Literature and Biography"
  - Barthes "The Death of the Author"
  - Foucault "What is an Author?"
  - Gates "Binary Opposites in . . . Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass"
- Literary History (the Tradition) / Intertextuality / Canonicity:
  - Jakobson and Tynianov "Problems in the Study of Literature and Language"
  - Tynianov "On Literary Evolution"
  - Bloom "Poetry, Revisionism, Repression"
  - Said "Secular Criticism"
  - Gates "Figures of Signification"
- Representation:
  - Jakobson "On Realism in Art"
  - De Man "Semiology and Rhetoric"
  - Bakhtin "Discourse in the Novel"
  - Eagleton "Towards a Science of the Text"
  - Bhabha "Representation and the Colonial Text"
- Literary Form:
  - Todorov "Structural Analysis of Narrative"
  - Barthes "Textual Analysis of a Tale by Edgar Allan Poe"
  - Bakhtin "Discourse in the Novel"
  - Eagleton "Towards a Science of the Text"
  - Bhabha "Representation and the Colonial Text"
Ideally, it would be useful preparation to familiarise yourself with each essay listed under a particular topic. In the case of each essay, you should be able in the final analysis to offer a detailled synopsis of the argument advanced and the intervention which it makes in the larger debate of which it is part. For example, what is Derrida's argument in "Structure Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences" and what does it contribute to the ongoing debate on the nature of Knowledge?
Remember that, in the exam, you will be asked in each question to compare the views of TWO theorists. Of crucial importance in this regard is to realise that each of these thinkers are spokespersons for differing schools of thought, that is, different paradigms or conceptual frameworks and, thus, different perspectives on the issue in question. In each case, it would be helpful to familiarise yourself with the main tenets or outlook of the school of thought in question by 'googling' the term or visiting the PhilWeb page devoted to it (see the links below) and either visiting the links suggested or tracking down in the library the secondary sources recommended. Here is a reminder of how the essays break down by school of thought :
- Deconstruction:
  - Derrida "Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences"
  - Barthes "The Death of the Author"
  - Barthes "Textual Analysis of a Tale by Edgar Allan Poe"
  - De Man "Semiology and Rhetoric"
  - Bloom "Poetry, Revisionism, Repression"
- Dialogism (Bakhtin Circle):
  - Bakhtin "Discourse in the Novel"
- Foucauldian Theory:
  - Foucault "What is an Author?"
  - Foucault "The Discourse on Language"
  - Foucault "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History"
- Semiotics / Structuralism:
  - Tomashevsky "Literature and Biography"
  - Jakobson and Tynianov "Problems in the Study of Literature and Language"
  - Tynianov "On Literary Evolution"
  - Jakobson "On Realism in Art"
  - Levi-Strauss "Language and the Analysis of Social Laws"
  - Todorov "Structural Analysis of Narrative"
- Stucturalist Marxism:
  - Althusser "From Capital to Marx's Philosophy"
  - Eagleton "Towards a Science of the Text"
- Post-colonial / African American Theory:
  - Said Orientalism
  - Said "Secular Criticism"
  - Gates "Binary Opposites in . . . Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass"
  - Gates "Figures of Signification"
  - Bhabha "Representation and the Colonial Text"
Last but not least, don't expect to necessarily find in each case a simplistic, straightforward question such as "Discuss the views of two of the following theorists on the topic of representation . . . " Questions often come in slightly disguised form (perhaps with a quote of some kind or worded in an unexpected way) designed to make you think a bit. Ultimately, however, they most often boil down, upon closer inspection, to something straightforward of the sort described above. The challenge, though, is to decipher what the question is getting at and to arrive at its 'nitty-gritty,' as they say. Your job is then to marshall the material which you have prepared in order to answer the particular question asked.